


A Truce

by sleepyInsomniac



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Enemies to Lovers, Intermission (Homestuck), M/M, but rest assured its gonna be gay, idfk im making this up as i go, slow burn?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-07-15 14:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16064867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepyInsomniac/pseuds/sleepyInsomniac
Summary: I'm horrible at naming things. Anyway, after the Midnight Crew's bunker is flooded, and they manage to be kicked out of every hotel in town, they're left at the mercy of their rival gang: The Felt. Scratch lets them occupy the Felt Manor alongside The Felt, well aware of what disastrous outcomes it may yield. But he's only being a polite host, really.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Homestuck](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/419144) by Andrew Hussie. 



Chapter 1

“No, Slick, that’s not the fuckin-!” Droog’s shouting was interrupted by the now incredibly increased water pressure spewing from the busted pipe under the sink. Slick was fucking awful at this- he was practically treating it like a ‘rotate-the-pipe’ puzzle, turning every damned knob and pipe he could get his twitchy hands on. Droog was fairly certain Slick had actually managed to bend one of the metal pipes, which was impressive, if not just by being the dumbest fucking thing Droog had the misfortune of laying his eyes on.  
  
Clubs had innocently mentioned it was leaking only an hour earlier, and now Slick was cranking at the thing and cursing at it like it’d fucked his mother. Finally, he got frustrated and threw the wrench at the wall, of which it rebounded and hit him in the forehead with a loud, metallic clang that left Slick lying on the floor. He opened his mouth to begin screaming at the top of his lungs, but Droog stepped on his mouth.  
  
“Can it.”  
  
Slick bit Droog’s shoe, and Droog wasn’t sure whether he was seeing things, or if Slick was foaming at the mouth. Droog rolled his eyes until he noticed that Slick’s fangs had actually managed to pierce his shoe. Oh my fucking god. Droog lifted his shoe and decided not to comment on the fact that one of Slick’s teeth was now embedded in it.  
  
And then Hearts, the massive oaf, came trudging through the doorway. Slick was now screaming on the floor, and Droog had his thumb and index finger pressed to his forehead in frustration, so Hearts took it as a cue to take matters into his own hands. His own large, reckless hands. He lumbered over to the sink, and Droog’s head pricked up as if to observe. When Droog noticed Hearts bending down to get to the pipes, he immediately opened his mouth.  
  
“No, don’t-” Too late. Hearts had almost instantaneously busted the damn thing. The entire thing. The whole system of pipes was off the wall, and Slick was getting soaked with water. So was the room, as a matter of fact; it’d probably only be a matter of minutes before the room was covered in a thin layer of water.  
  
The door to Clubs’s room creaked open, revealing Clubs in his blue striped pajamas holding a glass, presumably for water. He looked over to the sink, and only frowned. Not that he was surprised.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Midnight Crew go hotel hunting. It's very efficient. SO fucking efficient. I could cry right now, they're so good at this.

Unsurprisingly, the place flooded fairly quickly. They couldn’t figure out how to stop the unrelenting assault of water on their humble bunker, so they just had to watch as it filled. After determining there was no way to immediately stop the flow of water, the four decided it’d be best to just attempt salvaging essential belongings and looking for a place to stay until it could be drained.

So the crew went hotel hunting.

The first place wasn’t exactly a classy establishment. ‘Penny-saver’ in, they called it. The four tumbled into the lobby. This was more literal in Clubs’s case, who immediately managed to trip over the corner of a chair and fall over, knocking over a lamp in the process and hitting a poor unsuspecting civilian walking nearby. Slick practically hissed at Clubs, and literally picked the tiny carapacian off of the floor. Droog spent a few solid moments watching the stupidity unfold, and then shook his head. He came here for a reason, and that reason wasn’t to destroy the place, surprisingly.

Droog attempted to start a conversation with the woman working at the counter, but his first word was interrupted by the loud thud that was both Slick and Clubs crashing to the floor after Slick tripped on the fallen lamp. To add insult to injury, the metal pole of the lamp was now bent. Droog tried to give the hotel worker an apologetic look, but she just gave him a glare and a thumb sign towards the door.

Alright, so, one hotel eliminated: not that one. It probably didn’t help that Spades nearly stabbed the woman at the counter after finding out they’d been rejected a stay. Or that he left scratches in the counter with his claws after Boxcars pried him away from it. Droog was trying not to snap at his crew members as he drove to the next hotel he was aware of.

The next hotel! Not too shabby of a place, but not too classy either. Whatever kept them out of the flooded bunker was fine with Droog. Viewpoint hotel. He tried to approach the man working the counter a bit more hastily than last time, but it seemed like Slick wanted to deal with affairs this time around. Oh boy. Droog didn’t really get to argue about it, so he let out a loud sigh and let himself be pushed aside.  
  
“Hey, can we get a fucking room?” Slick already had the knife pulled out. Holy shit. One of Slick’s eyes were twitching. The man at the counter took a few steps back.  
  
“Uh, pu-put back the knife, or-or-or I’ll call security!” The man stammered.

“Not a problem a knife can’t solve,” Slick stabbed the air. Boxcars was already dragging him away from the counter, so Slick attempted to spit at the man. He succeeded, and the guy staggered backwards, before simply shouting for security to come. And so, security came, as the guy behind the counter tried to figure out whether to be disgusted and not move or to be enraged at Slick.  
The guard attempted to apprehend Boxcars, which made Droog audibly facepalm, as Boxcars held Slick with one arm and used his other to break the guard’s wrist. Droog motioned for Boxcars to follow before he made things worse. Clubs, of course, tailed behind, but not before kicking the guard in the ankle as hard as he could before gleefully skipping away.

  
Okay. Okay! This was okay. Just another hotel to cross off the list. Only two hotels out of the entirety of Midnight City, that wasn’t too shabby, right? Droog was trying not to lose his temper.  
Ridgeway hotel. A really shitty hotel. Pretty fucking bad. Bad people, bad service, bad amenities. But maybe it’d be the one place they could actually get into. Droog actually requested the other three of the Midnight Crew stay in the car this time around, hoping he’d have peace long enough at the counter to get a room.

  
“Hey,” Droog started, calm and collected. They weren’t even in the room. So they couldn’t fuck it up, right? “You got any rooms already up fa’ grabs?”  
The woman behind the counter was just opening her mouth to speak when the sound of gunfire came from outside. Droog took a slow, frustrated breath. Not that he was surprised. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to know what was happening. His curiosity for their bullshit had exhausted a very, very long time ago.

  
Seven more hotels later, and it seemed their luck hadn’t changed. The Midnight Crew had managed to get kicked out of the shittiest, most raunchy-ass hotels in the entire town, each of their own individual circumstances. Fuck.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Droog and Crowbar strike a deal, after Crowbar nearly bludgeons Droog from Scratch's neglect.

Crowbar rested the side of his face on his right hand, his other hand occupying a green pen. Usually, his penmanship was very neat, but right now, in his half-asleep daze, it was hardly legible. The leprechaun’s eyes closed shut for a bit too long, and he was woken up by the sudden dip of his own head, now sitting bolt-upright. Crowbar felt the warm steam of his tar-black coffee hit his face, and shook his head to wake himself up and take a sip.  
  
It was lucky his awakening came with such timing, as a knock sounded on the door just a few seconds later. Crowbar readjusted his hat, which was askew after his head had fallen, and opened the door.  
  
Droog was very much surprised when Crowbar immediately raised his namesake tool in alarm, and had to raise his own hands to show he wasn’t armed.  
“Wait!” Droog shouted, stepping back a bit. Crowbar’s gaze was calculating and on-guard, but he did stop the movement of his crowbar. He didn’t know why. This was how you got killed. Droog gave a barely noticeable sigh of relief, which surprised Crowbar.  
  
“Fuckin’ christ, Scratch said he’d tell you I was comin’ down here,” he complained, his voice now mostly casual instead of the previous alarm.  
  
A voice permeated the air. It didn’t seem to have a source. It was just there. Droog, not as used to it as Crowbar, instinctively looked for a source regardless for a few seconds before realizing why there wasn’t any.  
  
“I never said when I was going to tell him,” the voice sounded smug and amused. “I’m a very busy man, Diamonds.”  
  
Droog mumbled something that Crowbar couldn’t hear, but Scratch knew what he’d said.  
  
“It didn’t ‘slip my mind’, nothing ever does. By the way, Crowbar, Diamonds Droog planned to visit your office to discuss temporary living arrangement. I ask that you don’t kill him, if you could trouble yourself to avoid it.”  
  
Crowbar rolled his eyes irritably. You could only really tell from the movement of his eyelids, though, due to the lack of pupils.  
“You got it, Doc.” Crowbar looked out of the corner of his eyes to see if Droog had any sort of reaction to his own response. If Crowbar were in Droog’s shoes, he’d be surprised not to be gunned down at the door. Droog only gave the slightest hint of a nod, though, and Crowbar didn’t know how to feel about that. He turned to face Droog directly, now, though. “Temporary living arrangements?” Crowbar repeated, raising an eyebrow in a display of confusion.  
  
“Yeah. Bunker got flooded. The sink started leaking, and long story short, Boxcars broke the entire damn thing off the wall.” Crowbar had never heard Droog talk more than a few quick, often ill-tempered sentences at a time. Finally seeing the calm and cool persona he'd heard so much about was interested to him.  
  
“And you came here of all places because…?” Crowbar continued to keep on his skeptical expression. He wasn’t surprised about Boxcars breaking the entire fucking sink at all. The guy could probably bite someone’s head off their shoulders if he tried.  
  
Droog gave a long sigh. “Because we managed ta’ get fuckin’ kicked out of every hotel in Midnight City. And also we were evicted.”  
“You were evicted? From a bunker?” This story just seemed to get dumber and dumber as Droog continued.  
  
Droog honestly looked embarrassed at this point, and, while that surprised Crowbar, he didn’t blame him. If Crowbar had to do something like this, he’d probably be faring a hell of a lot worse composure-wise than Droog was.  
  
“Yeah,” he dragged the word out long and slow, like he was doing a good job not just dropping his jaw and screaming out of frustration.  
  
“An’ you’re not gonna… elaborate as ta’ how the hell that even happens?” Crowbar was idly twirling his crowbar on the end of one of his fingers. Droog was watching it carefully, like he was still seeing it as a threat.  
  
“First of all, we didn’t know we had a landlord,” Crowbar’s expression changed from slight curiosity to ‘are you fucking kidding me’ the moment after he said that, “and second of all, we didn’t know he was an absolute dickbag.”  
  
Crowbar blinked a few times, like he was just taking a moment to make sure Droog wasn’t just fucking with him. Like he was expecting him to say “just kidding, we filled the place with fucking concrete”. Almost anything else would have sounded less obscenely stupid. When Droog didn’t say anything after that, Crowbar gave a small sigh, and took a moment to actually consider what the hell Droog was actually proposing.  
  
“How long would y’ need ta’ stay?” was the question he settled on.  
  
“However long it takes to get an apartment without Slick killing the landlord first.” Droog’s voice was really flat, so either he was serious or he was just like that. Probably both. “Shouldn’t be longer than a few weeks, given Slick doesn’t kill every goddamn landlord in Midnight City first.”  
  
“Which, hey, in that case, that’s a whole lotta people that can’t sue you for property damage. Kill the city counsel, while you’re at it,” Crowbar joked lightly, still spinning his crowbar on one finger.  
Droog shrugged. “I’ll have to put Boxcars on that one.” Again, flat tone. Was there a surgery to fix that?  
  
“Unfortunately, no. He and I both share the dreadful affliction, Seven, you should be more sensitive.” Scratch again. Motherfucker.  
  
Droog had no fucking clue what Scratch was talking about. What the hell? Was Crowbar talking shit about Droog mentally?  
  
No _you fuckin’ don’t, you smug cueball bastard. You don’t even have a face, and I can still tell how full a’ yourself you are_ , Crowbar thought, very intentionally.  
Scratch’s smug laugh filled the air, but he didn’t say anything about it.  
  
“...I’m not gonna ask.” Droog’s voice cut the weird tension that always came with Scratch’s presence.  
  
“It’s best y’ don’t,” Crowbar grumbled. Droog was already taking some mental notes about Crowbar’s behavior. Best to know some things about the guy he was asking to live in the same damn house as. “Anyway,” Crowbar said, still cursing Scratch mentally. “I’ll cut ‘cha a deal, aight? You can stay as long as you’re gonna need, provided none a’ ya kill or severely maim any a’ The Felt. Also, don’t fuckin’ wreck the place if you can avoid it. You sure you can manage that much?”  
  
Droog almost wanted to argue with that, even though those terms were more than reasonable. Some of The Felt could probably pick a fight with a parked goddamn car. But hey, The Midnight Crew could… sometimes be worse. Mostly just Slick and Boxcars.  
  
“Yeah,” he decided, after a few moments contemplation that kind of worried Crowbar. He didn’t think his terms were too fucking binding. Just don’t kill anyone and don’t destroy the building, what more was Droog hoping for. “You gotta deal. I owe you one.”  
  
The two shook hands, and that set the deal. Crowbar agreed to make something more official. Maybe he was just like that. Droog didn’t really think it was necessary, but the organization was appreciated, he supposed.  
  
But he didn’t have time to think about that.  
  
He had to inform The Midnight Crew of this new development.


End file.
